Syracuse University football rookie Ashton Broyld's role is defined more clearly as season approaches

Syracuse, NY -- The Syracuse University football team employed freshman Ashton Broyld in a variety of ways during its annual spring game, playing the talented athlete at slot receiver, wide receiver, tailback and quarterback. During preseason camp the staff decided to define his role more clearly, centering on the tailback position.

“I’m starting to really get a grasp for the running back thing,” Broyld said recently. “It’s a lot, but I really feel I’m getting the hang of it. I’m comfortable in the backfield.”

Broyld (6-foot-4, 229 pounds) admitted his first preseason camp was a grind at times.

“Camp has been long for me, you know what I mean?” he said. “And as far as the maturity thing goes, you know, for me to be able to step up and go hard every day. That’s been my problem. My issues are more mental, but I’m coming along. I’m fine now. We’re in there competing, every day trying to get better, and at the end of the day I just think we’re going to have a very, very strong backfield.”

Broyld will be among as many as five backs – juniors Jerome Smith and Prince-Tyson Gulley, sophomore Adonis Ameen-Moore and freshman George Morris III are the others – who could see action when the Orange opens the season at noon Saturday vs. Northwestern in the Carrier Dome (ESPN2).

“I think we’re just going to have a triple-headed monster or four-headed monster, whatever,” he said. “It’s going to be something like that because we have backs who can do it all. We’ve got different styles of guys. We’ve got certain situation guys. It’s really hard to choose one guy because we all do something a little bit better or different than the next guy.”

For a long time Broyld’s situation involved getting his big, fast body on the perimeter with the ball. While that remains his strength, he began running more inside toward the end of camp in a move to prevent him from being typecast into a role and thus being easier to defend.

“I really like running the ball,” he said. “I’ve always liked to run the ball. I don’t really know what’s going to happen, but I think down the road we’re going to start doing that (running inside) a little more. You do have to switch it up and be able to do different things to be able to keep teams off-balance.”

Broyld certainly has the potential to do that.

“Ashton’s definitely a talented player,” quarterback Ryan Nassib said. “He’s got some skills that can really help us. Me and the coaches just have to do a really good job of getting him in the right places, getting him the ball in areas where he can show off those talents and do what he can do.”